Saturday, August 6, 2016

Maximos The Confessor on the Transfiguration

Maximos here gives a beautiful
explanation of the event and theological significance of the Transfiguration.
Interesting enough, St Maximos gives a similar exegesis with Origen, both
explaining that the garments of Christ became dazzling white, symbolising the
words of Holy Scripture, showing thus the importance of the logos and Logos.

‘Thus…it happened that certain of
Christ’s disciples, through diligence in virtue, ascended and were raised aloft
with Him on the mountain of His manifestation, where they beheld Him
transfigured, unapproachable by reason of the light of His face, and
astonishing in the brightness of his garments; and having observed His
appearance made more august by the honour of Moses and Elijah standing at
either side of Him, they crossed over from the flesh to the spirit, prior to
having cast off carnal life, through the substitution of their powers of sense
perception by the activity of the Spirit, who removed the veils of the passions
that had covered the intellective capacity within them. With the sensory organs
of their souls and bodies purified through the Spirit, they were initiated into
the spiritual principles of the mysteries that had been disclosed to them.

They were taught, in a hidden
way, that the wholly blessed radiance that shone with dazzling rays of light
from the Lord’s face, completely overwhelming the power of their eyes, was a
symbol of His divinity, which transcends intellect, sensation, being, and
knowledge. From the observation that He
had neither form nor beauty (Is 53:2), and from the knowledge that the Word had become flesh (Jn 1:14) they
were led to the understanding of Him as one more
beautiful that the sons of men (Ps 44(45): 2), who was in the beginning and was with God, and was God (Jn 1:1) and, by
means of theological negation that extols Him as being beyond all human
comprehension, they were raised up cognitively to the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth (Jn
1:14). They were also taught that the
garments, which became dazzling white
(cf. Mt 17:2; Mk 9:3; Lk 9:29) convey a symbol: first of the words of Holy
Scripture, which at the moment became bright, clear, and transparent to them,
grasped by the intellect without any dark riddles or symbolic shadows, and
pointing to the meaning (logos) that
lay concealed within them (at which point the disciples received the perfect
and correct knowledge of God, and were set free from every attachment to the
world and the flesh); and, second, of creation itself – stripped of the soiled
preconceptions of those who till then believed they saw it clearly, but who in
fact were deceived and bound to sense perception alone – now appearing in the
variety of the different forms that constitute it, all declaring the power of
the Creator Word, in the same way that a garment makes known the dignity of the
one who wears it.

For both of these interpretations
are appropriate for the Word, because in both cases He has been rightly covered
with obscurity for our sake, so that we should not dare to approach unworthily
what is beyond our comprehension, namely, the words of Holy Scripture, for He
is the Word; or creation, for He is the creator, fashioner, and artisan. From
this it follows that whoever wishes blamelessly to walk the straight road to
God, stands in need of both the inherent spiritual knowledge of Scripture, and
the natural contemplation of beings according to the spirit. In this way,
anyone who desires to become a perfect lover of perfect wisdom will be able to
show what is only reasonable, namely, that the two laws – the natural and the
written – are of equal value and equal dignity, that both of them reciprocally
teach the same things, and that neither is superior or inferior to the other.’[1]

[1]
Maximos the Confessor, Ambiguum 10,
ed. And trans. Nicholas Constas, On
Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua [Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2014], 190-95.

About Me

I have studied Theology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Theology, International Relations at the University of London (Queen Mary). My Master's Thesis was published as a book: 'The Aegean Sea Dispute Between Greece and Turkey - The Consequences for NATO and the EU'. For more information see: http://www.akakia.net/el/the-aegean-sea-dispute-between-greece-and-turkey
I have also studied Byzantine Music in Athens and I am currently undertaking a research on the “Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius and its contribution towards Anglican – Orthodox Relations”, at the University of Winchester.
I also represent the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain at the A.E.C.A. If you wish to contact me you can email me: demetrifs1@yahoo.com